


Origins of Demons

by junko



Series: Scatter and Howl [21]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-06
Updated: 2015-06-06
Packaged: 2018-04-03 03:41:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4085332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/junko/pseuds/junko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Byakuya retreats into house arrest to sulk; Renji stews in prison.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Origins of Demons

Byakuya stormed through the back gardens to the front door of the state. He was so angry, he wanted to shunpo out to Sokoyoku hill and let off a huge blast of reiatsu. But, he was under ‘house arrest.’ 

For fraternization. 

And Renji was in jail at the Ninth Division for… for nothing. For trumped up charges that had absolutely everything to do with Byakuya’s own foolishness. Which only served to anger him further.

Then Muguruma’s comment that implied Renji wasn’t safe remanded into Byakuya’s care? How dare he.

Especially as it was… true.

Why. Why did he always lift a hand? Could they not have talked things through? They had been… starting to—albeit badly. Still, why did it come down to violence? Why did he always start it? And why was Renji always blamed for it?

The new house steward, Hitoshi, opened the door at Byakuya’s approach. Hitoshi’s mouth opened when he saw Byakuya was alone, but he wisely said nothing. Instead, he bowed deeply, his head nearly touching his knees. 

Byakuya kicked his sandals off so hard that they flung halfway across the hall. It was childish and not nearly as satisfying as Byakuya would have hoped. When Hitoshi scrambled to fetch them, Byakuya stopped him. “Let me.” 

Enough acting like a spoiled child, Byakuya admonished himself. Taking a deep breath, Byakuya gathered up his sandals and placed them, gently, in the proper place. But then he found he lacked the strength to stand back up. Instead, he stayed kneeling at the threshold so long that Hitoshi gasped and fell to his own knees.

“My lord?”

“I’m fine,” Byakuya lied. “I just need…” he hesitated because what he wanted was to order a metric ton of sake brought up to the library. But drunkenness had been at least partly to blame for this evening, so instead, he said, “tea—yes, please bring a large pot of Miki’s strongest brew and something sobering to eat. I’ll be hiding under the kotatsu in the library.”

Hitoshi started to automatically say ‘yes, m’lord’ but seemed to pause at Byakuya’s final admission. “Did you say, ‘ _under_ the kotatsu,’ your lordship?”

He had, hadn’t he? It was probably the alcohol’s influence, but it felt strangely freeing to just say what was on his mind for once. “Yes,” Byakuya said, pulling himself upright with some effort. “I will be hiding under the blankets, sulking. It will be a deep and ugly sulk. Please inform the staff that they should give me a very wide berth.”

“Um….” Hitoshi started, glancing up from where he knelt on the floor. But then, with an almost imperceptible shrug, he said, “Yes, m’lord.”

“Once I’m sufficiently over my pouting and have sobered up, I will ring you and you will have Aio fetch whomever is on duty from the Division. Also, once I’m ready, have one of the bodyguard who can shunpo request, no, beg Captains Kyōraku and Ukitake to interrupt their evening plans to attend me here at the estate for an emergency strategy meeting. Bring them a gift. Our best sake, our best tea… and have the gifts wrapped very, very nicely. We have not been best of friends, the captains and I, but I have no one else to turn to and the situation is critical. Too critical for me to stand on my damn pride a single moment longer.”

“It will be as you say, my lord.”

With a sigh, Byakuya muttered, “If only.”

#

Renji stripped the rough wool blanket from the cell’s cot and wrapped it around his shoulders. Plunking himself down on the hard bed, Renji was surprised to see Hisagi was still standing at the door. 

Hisagi’s arms were through the bars, resting on a cross beam, and he leaned in, like he was casually hanging out. “You want to tell me what really happened?”

Renji snorted. “You asking in your special function as the sub-commander of the military police? Because, if so, I got nothing.”

Hisagi stared at Renji in the dim light of the holding cells for a long time before saying, “Man, you’re a hard ass tonight. I’m going to tell myself it’s because you’re hurting.”

Crossing his arms in front of his chest, Renji let his head fall back against the wall. “Tonight sucked, okay, Shuu? It started out pretty fantastic—good food, a proposal— but now I’m fucking sitting in jail, possibly on the verge of losing everything including my commission and all because I have the most stupid, fucking jealous boyfriend in the history of all time.” Renji glared hard at Hisagi and added, “And for the record, I have not identified who I mean by that.”

Hisagi let out a long sigh. Standing up, he turned his back on Renji to lean against the barred door. “I’m sorry Captain Kuchiki blurted things out like he did, but you know Captain Muguruma had to say something. He’d just lectured everyone about following the book. He couldn’t ignore a flagrant violation. Anyway, I’d be surprised if the Head Captain does anything more than yell at everybody for wasting his time. If he made a ruling against you two, he’d have a riot on his hands. Everybody in the whole goddamn Gotei fraternizes. And, anyway, technically, Kuchiki can run his division however he wants, including having a harem of lovers as lieutenants, if he likes.”

That image made Renji let out a gruff laugh. “Well, there is that.”

“Exactly,” Hisagi said, glancing over his shoulder. “You have no idea how often Captain Kurotsuchi claims his ‘captain’s privilege’ in extremely dubious, morally reprehensible ways… and we just walk away and let him get away with it. So I figure if that kind of thing is acceptable, you two should be allowed to be together, romantically.”

Renji let himself slump sideways onto the cot with a thump. He pulled his feet up off the floor and rolled over to stare at the stone ceiling. “Then what the fuck am I doing here?”

Hisagi turned around. “Cooling off from a punch up with your ‘stupid, fucking jealous’ boyfriend.”

“Oh,” Renji said. Feeling the fight sucked out of him in a rush, he closed his eyes. “Right.”

“You want to talk about it?”

“Nope.”

Hisagi waited through the silence for a long time, but eventually gave up with a, “Fine, have it your way, you stubborn hard ass.”

Hisagi must have had his own set of keys to the place, because Renji heard their clinking. A second later a power surge flared up and the door opened. It closed with a slam and was followed by a fainter sound of a lock clicking into place and a low thrum of reiatsu. 

Rolling over, Renji tried to sleep.

#

Byakuya had chosen to sulk in the library because he knew he would never allow his temper to destroy his father’s precious book collection. So, after allowing himself a single, solitary scream, he crawled under the kotatsu’s quilt and pulled the blanket up over his head. 

He hated himself.

He hated himself because he could feel rage singing in his marrow, like the distant song of Senbonzakura. Blades disguised as flower petals. Beauty hiding a beast. That was his soul, his very essence. And he hated that he knew that Muguruma was wise to have taken Renji away from him because, left to his own devices, he would be consumed by the demon that lashed out from its own internal pain.

Renji likely assumed that Byakuya was most angry about the dalliance with… ugh, Byakuya had already forgotten which lieutenant it had been, Kotetsu? Wasn’t that one of Ukitake’s Thirds? It hardly mattered. Byakuya’s anger had been triggered long before his jealousy.

The moment Renji had implied that he’d strayed because he’d wanted someone less complicated and more… fun, that had been when Byakuya had felt the darkness begin to surface, or descend as the case may be. Because Byakuya was never that person, the fun one. Rank had always kept him aloof, separate, and wrapped up tight. But, even if he’d been allowed to be, Byakuya knew he was not the easy-going type. His father had managed it, despite being born a Kuchiki, but Byakuya recognized he had always been more like his mother… a bit of a diva, demanding, difficult to please.

His father and grandfather both tried to break him of those traits by sending him off to be trained with the most easy-going noble ever—Yoruichi. But, she had only succeeded in teaching him to be fast on his feet. Though, his time with her had not been entirely wasted. She had also been the one to flippantly suggest that perhaps the best way for him to deal with his grandfather was to ignore him—go cold instead of hot.

A lifesaver—possibly in more ways than one. But, the forced repression had also twisted the demon, made it stronger.

No. No one was to blame for that, except himself, his nature. He was the cut of a thousand blades, the worst, most painful way to die. It was what he inflicted on those around him.

Inflicted… and enjoyed.

He’d been taught to hate that part of himself as well. His grandfather had told him it made him sick, base, unclean, disgusting, abnormal, wicked… and a sadist. He’d truly believed that for a long, long time. Yet, no matter how much he tried to repress or subvert that part of him, it never went away. It just roiled deep under the surface getting more ugly the longer it was denied.

And Renji, unwittingly, with his wild beauty and resilience and willfulness... had… no, it was not Renji. He'd done nothing to deserve Byakuya’s demon, but the combination intoxicated the demon. Suddenly, Byakuya sought any excuse to mete out punishment. Real punishment; not play at all. Real pain. Real humiliation.

‘Real asshole move,’ Byakuya could almost hear Renji say, which made him smile despite himself. 

He hugged the blankets around his shoulders, wishing Renji were here. Because Renji had changed everything. By discovering that what drove Byakuya was a kink, not a disease, Renji had loosened a noose that had been around Byakuya’s neck—  
one that he would have, if he’d continued on the same way, hanged himself on one day, but which, when released, had suddenly allowed Byakuya to breathe deeply in a way he never had before in his whole life.

This was why he loved Renji. Renji saw the demon like no one else ever had. Everyone else who had seen even a hint of it had been terrified or ashamed or disgusted. Renji had accepted it, gave them rules to allow it to be played with safely, and… most of the time, even seemed to truly enjoy it.

And the thought that all that had been too complicated and un-fun…

It had hurt Byakuya on a profound level.

And then the old, unreformed demon, the one that lashed out when it was injured, had resurfaced.

So of course he’d tried to slap Renji down. It was the default setting on this stupid demon, the one side of his demon that his grandfather and his aunt had so very carefully nurtured and allowed. 

_Of course you can abuse them; they’re beneath you. Watch as I do it. Learn from me. This is what makes you a noble, not disgusting or terrible. When you do this, we will applaud or, at the very least, understand that such things must, regrettably, be done from time to time. It is, alas, the burden of our class to keep the rabble at our feet._

_Whatever means necessary._

_They have thick skin, the lot of them. Beasts to be trained, restrained, controlled… mastered. You must hit hard. Don’t hold back. How else will they learn?_

It was, Byakuya knew, ‘such bullshit,’ as Renji might say. But the whole disgusting attitude was reinforced so much, particularly in his early dark days, that the demon believed it. When the demon came out, so did this part of him.

He hated it.

He had always hated it, even as it thrilled him, even as it fed the monster. But, he could never have loved Hisana if he had truly believed any of it. But it had also been why he had never truly confessed to her his darkest desires. Some, because she was a professional, but most he kept under lock and key.

But repression was only the illusion of control. True control, Byakuya was beginning to learn, was about accepting and directing and… loving. Renji’s birthday gift had been all those things.

And it killed him to think that any part of Renji found giving that to him was arduous, because then it might mean that the demon was ugly after all, and utterly unlovable.

Like himself.

#

Given the conditions, it was a wonder Renji didn’t dream of Inuzuri. Instead, what haunted him was Aizen.

It wasn’t the terrifying Aizen of Hueco Mundo or even some imagined horror of the hellish butterfly creature he’d rumored to become. No, what bubbled up from Renji’s subconscious was a memory of the mild-mannered captain he’d so briefly served and his silver-haired, foxy lieutenant.

Looking back, so much of Renji’s tenure at the Fifth had been a test—a test of his loyalty to the Gotei, to Aizen, to the law. Aizen later said that Renji was the troublesome one, but it wasn’t because he failed any of the tests that made him a problem.

It was the viciousness with which he passed them.

Renji’d only been stationed with the Fifth for a month or two. Still unseated, but ambitious and anxious to prove himself, he hadn’t even considered the danger—how much like a trap it should have seemed from the very start—when Lieutenant Ichimaru told him he’d been handpicked for an assignment…

…in the Rukongai.

_You and just a few others_ , Ichimaru had drawled in that singsong, happy way of his. _What? Such coincidence that we all are from the Rukongai, eh? How clever of you to notice, Abarai-kun!_

_Yes, soldier, that’s your order. Any of them cross the line, you kill them. Dead._

And Renji never hesitated. He struck clean. He swung true.

It was the first blood Zabimaru tasted. Zabimaru dined that night on the sick, hungry, desperate blood of Renji's spiritual kin who died screaming for justice, begging for mercy, and weeping in desperation. Their blood spattered Renji’s face and disappeared like it was nothing more than water into the blackness of his uniform.

There were some shinigami who fled. Some who grew physically sick and swore they couldn’t do it. Some who tried, but whose intent was so weak, someone else had to finish the job. That someone else was Renji. It was always Renji. Renji or… Ichimaru. 

When they’d met, their blades nearly clashing as they struck down a fleeing soul in union, Ichimaru had given Renji a smile that had chilled him to the bone. He saw it again perfectly now in his mind’s eye. The grin of like meeting like, of one monster acknowledging another.

Renji woke with a gasp.

#

A soft knock alerted Byakuya that he should start to pull himself out of this funk. He started to crawl out from under the blankets to make himself presentable, but the new steward took him at his word and, from behind closed doors, said loudly, “Your tea will be here, my lord, at the door.”

A drop and run? Well. That was unexpected.

Eishirō would have barged in and told Byakuya to get over himself. Crawling out from under the warm kotatsu, he made his way to the door carefully, mindful of how unsteady his feet still were.

He should really swear off alcohol.

A good resolution, Byakuya decided, a step in the right direction. Also, next time he felt the need to raise his hand to Renji, he would resolve to ask himself why. If the answer involved putting Renji in his place, or Gods forbid, keeping him on a tight leash, then Byakuya would count to ten.

Or maybe a thousand.

Regardless, he would think before he acted and not allow the demon to control him so completely.

Retrieving the tea, Byakuya brought the tray back to the kotatsu. He picked out a book of his father’s poetry. He tucked his legs under the blankets, but otherwise sat up properly and sipped his tea, pursuing the words written in a careful hand—one Byakuya now knew was not his dominant, not his preferred.

Yet somehow Byakuya’s father had endured the so-called ‘correction’ and hid the truth from everyone. If it twisted him in any way, Byakuya never perceived it. Though it would not surprise him in the least to discover his father had demons of his own. Grandfather most certainly did.

Byakuya distracted himself with pretty, empty words until he felt sufficiently sober. He tested himself on the wall to the bell pull. Yes, it would do. Time to ring for the couriers to be sent.

#

Renji lay on the cot trying to get his breathing under control. Despite the chill, he was slick with sweat, his heart pounding like he’d run a mile.

Sitting up, Renji ran his fingers through his hair, wishing he’d thought to stick a hair tie in the pocket of his hakama. Not that it would help him now, what with his damn pants being locked up with his shoes and belt.

Helluva dream.

Renji swung his feet over the edge of the cot. Resting his elbows on his thighs, he hung his head. Fuck. He thought he’d stuck that memory so deep it’d never come out. That it never did when all the Rukia stuff was going down was a miracle, but he’d had so many things fucking him up during the ryoka invasion, it managed to stay buried. It must have resurfaced because of all this talk of justice and rules and the blatant disregard for any of it, as the wind blew.

And the fact that he was the one on the other side now. And you didn’t want to be perceived as the weak one in the Gotei, or any-damn-where in the Soul Society….

_Soldiers follow orders_ , Aizen had been so very, very fond of reminding them. _Don’t ask questions, that’s not your job. You are the sword arm of the Gotei, not its brains._

Renji’d lived by those words. He’d had to. Aizen had made the alternatives pretty damn clear. The ones who couldn’t fight that night had disappeared. Everyone assumed they transferred out, but Ichimaru had given Renji a little winking crinkle of his nose, like a foxy wink, that made Renji figure maybe they’d been put to pasture. Permanently. 

Ichimaru had thought to take Renji under his wing after that. It didn’t work out. Dogs hate foxes. 

More than that, Renji had discovered that, while the kosode showed no blood, on the surface, on the outside, it seemed like nothing could touch him—inside, underneath, the pure white shitagi had been permanently stained with the blood of those he’d slain. Red over his heart. Seeping into his soul. 

So, despite Ichimaru’s ‘encouragement,’ Renji never could take any joy in it. Renji did his duty with grim determination, nothing more. He couldn’t lie or pretend enough to like it; he couldn’t drink himself into liking it. He’d fucking do it, but he could never accept it. He’d step up and do it where others couldn’t, but he’d never respect the work, not when it was like that, punching down, striking at the weaker ones.

Renji had sucked at hiding his feelings, too. Ichimaru knew Renji thought he was one seriously sick motherfucker. All it had taken was one excuse and bam! Transferred out.

Was it sad that he found the bloodthirstiness of the Eleventh more palatable? But, the thing was, Kenpachi had no time for any enemy too easy or too weak. He found the meanest, ugliest, toughest Hollows and let loose the hounds of war.

That was the kind of soldiering Renji had signed up for. That was the kind of blood Zabimaru could drink to their fill.

Aizen had said Renji was troublesome. Renji later figured Aizen had been hoping to forge the perfect sword—and maybe he could have done. Renji had the makings. Aizen had seen that in Academy. Renji would follow orders. He was a dog to his bones—a dog of the military.

Renji was sure that’s partly why Aizen had sent him and Byakuya to fetch Rukia. He knew Renji would never not follow an order, no matter how sick it made him.

Except, Aizen had been wrong. 

He’d made it just a touch too personal. He’d made Central just a little too hard, too fickle. Aizen couldn’t help but keep pushing, tinkering, and he’d pushed Renji right past the breaking point.

Not that it had really been about Renji at all. None of it, likely. 

Fucking Aizen and his fucking head games.

But the damn Gotei. Aizen just exploited all the shit that was already there.

Renji couldn’t say it had really blindsided him. He’d signed up for this life with his eyes open. Sure, he’d hoped that the ideals they fed everyone in Academy were real, just like everyone else did, but Inuzuri had been his first school. The streets and back alleys of Inuzuri had taught Renji that while ideals were nice, reality was more often than not a bitch. Sometimes the only way through was forward, even if all you saw in front of you was pure hell.

And none of it was fair. If it were, Renji wouldn’t be the one in a cell tonight. 

But here he was.

The question was: what now? Did the dog roll over or did he bite?

#

“With all due respect, Taicho, what? What even were you thinking, sir?” Nanako, their Third Seat shouted. Byakuya had never seen the woman this livid before. Her dark skin was blotched with fury and the way her reiatsu punctuated each word was one more way in which she reminded him of Yoruichi. “You should have told that bastard Muguruma to keep his fucking nose out of Division business! Did you really actually say ‘lovers’ spat’??!”

“I did,” Byakuya admitted, though he wished he could deny it. “I had been drinking. Regrettably, it came out before I could stop it.”

Nanako looked ready to launch into another diatribe, but her mouth opened and then closed. “Drink? You drink?”

“Not any more,” Byakuya assured her. 

Nanako stared at Byakuya for a while, chewing on her lip, and her hands on her hips. “I know you told me this, but explain again how it is that Renji is the one is jail?”

Byakuya sighed and sipped more tea. He had invited Nanako to sit with him at the kotatsu. She had started there, on the floor opposite him, but as he told the story she grew too agitated to sit still. She now paced the length of the narrow alcove. Fortunately, Byakuya was far more sober now or her constant motion would have made him dizzy.

“As I explained, I tried to hit him,” Byakuya said. “The lieutenant defended himself. So they initially charged him with insubordination, which is not theirs to decide, thus Muguruma said something about… ‘a cooling off period.’”

Now Nanako’s legs folded under her and she sat down, hard. “Are you shitting me? They’re treating Renji like the girl?”

Byakuya’s lips thinned. “That’s hardly appropriate, Third Seat. And I’m surprised to hear it coming from a woman such as yourself.”

“You know what I meant,” Nanako said sharply.

“Actually, I’m not sure. Are you surprised to imagine Renji as the victim in need of protection, or can you not sense the power difference between a captain and his lieutenant?”

“Both,” she said. “Renji has bankai, and a more capable man I never have met. Plus, if the Ninth first mistook it for insubordination, my money says Renji was winning that fight.”

Byakuya hid his smile behind his tea bowl. “Indeed he was.”

“Well, then, what the heck? You need to go down there and sort this out! Renji shouldn’t spend a second in jail. The way you tell it, Renji did nothing wrong. You wouldn’t charge him with insubordination and it’s not like he’s some kind of wilting wallflower that needs protection.”

Byakuya took a deep breath and said, “No, he is not. However, I feel that having some distance between us for the moment is… wise. We have had…. No, there is no one to blame but myself. I’m horribly jealous and I have a temper. Renji is safer away from me.”

“Oh.” 

“Yes,” Byakuya said, not wanting to look at her expression. Instead, he stared at his reflection in the tea. There were dark smudges under his eyes. “But the lieutenant could return to the Division at any time that he wishes. You will go, on my authority, to the Ninth. Don’t leave until they’ve released him. Where he goes after that is his own choice, but, as you say, it’s foolish to hold him like some kind of criminal when he is guilty of absolutely nothing.”

“Yes, sir!”

Nanako jumped up to do Byakuya’s bidding and nearly collided with an out-of-breath Ukitake. After many bowed apologies from Nanako and a deadly sounding coughing fit from Ukitake, Nanako went on her way and Ukitake gasped, “Emergency? Byakuya! I came as fast as I could. What’s the emergency?”

Byakuya stood up and helped Ukitake sit down at the kotatsu. “I’m sorry to have made you so worried, Taicho,” Byakuya said. Reaching for an extra tea bowl from the decorative set on the shelf behind him, Byakuya checked for dust. Finding none, he poured Ukitake a bowl. “I’ve been stupid. I need your advice.”

Ukitake took a long swallow of tea, and then, as if suddenly coming to, blinked and asked, “Where’s Renji?”

Kyōraku appeared in the doorway, saying, “Hopefully, we’re not being called in to bury the body.”

“What?” Ukitake sputtered, swiveling his head back and forth between his partner and Byakuya.

“You’ve had too many witness to do a proper cover-up, I’m afraid,” Kyōraku said with a laugh, grabbing himself a bowl from the set and seating himself down. To Ukitake, he explained, “Our boys have had a public row.”

Ukitake turned to Byakuya, “Oh, no! Oh, Byakuya! Are you all right? Has Renji left you? Did you fall out because he asked you to marry him?”

“Ho, ho! What’s this?” Kyōraku, who had been reaching for the teapot, paused and gave Byakuya wide eyes. 

Byakuya let out an exasperated breath. After giving each of them long, penetrating looks, Byakuya asked, “Is there any need to tell either of you anything? Do you already know all the details of my personal business?”

“I didn’t know about the proposal,” Kyōraku grumped, sounding genuinely disappointed in himself. After filling his cup, he sat back and crossed his hairy arms in front of his chest, the delicate, antique teacup clutched in a large, meaty hand. 

“I didn’t know of the fight,” Ukitake reminded his partner. Tucking a long strand of snow white hair behind his ear, he turned to Byakuya, “And please don’t be angry, Byakuya. Renji came by this afternoon to borrow a soul phone to make the arrangements. I eavesdropped. Like I do.”

Kyōraku laughed, relaxing enough to tip his bowl in Ukitake’s direction like a salute. “This is true. Not much that happens in the Human World gets past my clever ‘Shiro! Bless his soul. It’s one of the many reasons I love him so desperately.”

Ukitake blushed, but waved his hand for Kyōraku to stop. He leaned forward and touched Byakuya’s sleeve imploringly. “Please, Byakuya, tell us how we can help.”

Byakuya took in a deep breath. This was going to be difficult, but he’d tasked himself that he would tell the whole story, no matter how embarrassing or how awful it made him seem. “It was not the proposal that set things off. It was—“ Byakuya glanced up at Kyōraku and continued, “Ironically, it was you.” Kyōraku gave a ‘what, who, innocent little me?’ gesture, which Byakuya ignored. “Your party at the Eleventh last year. Renji… strayed with… no, the details aren’t important, what’s important is that I grew unreasonably jealous. Renji is so easygoing and I’m so very difficult. It doesn’t take much for me to feel insecure. In fact, sometimes I can’t understand why he hasn’t already left me for someone less prickly. The whole thing spiraled out of control. We said things we shouldn’t have. No, I said things I shouldn’t have. Then I raised my hand…”

Ukitake’s hands flew up to cover his mouth, “Oh, no, Byakuya. No. Please, no.”

“Unfortunately, yes,” Byakuya said. “But Renji has bankai now. He saw me coming. He defended himself perfectly well. It was I who went sprawling. Unfortunately, my tumble caused enough damage and noise to alert the guard. The Ninth got involved. Everyone instantly assumed, given Renji’s size and the fact that I was the one dusting myself off, that it was insubordination, that he was the aggressor. When I tried to correct them, I.…” Byakuya had to stop and take another breath to get the rest out: “I had too much to drink and I accidentally told everyone that Renji and I were lovers. The Ninth’s captain has charged me with fraternization.”

Now it was Kyōraku’s turn to tilt his hat back and moan, “Ah, Mr. Byakuya. Some men shouldn’t drink.”

“Indeed,” Byakuya agreed sullenly. The worst of it out, Byakuya went on and explained how he was currently under house arrest, how he had voluntarily surrendered Senbonzakura, and that Renji had been taken away—either for insubordination or for his own safety—but that he should be released soon, provided Nanako did her job, which there was no reason to think she wouldn’t.

After Byakuya had finished and they all sat in stunned silence for a moment, Kyōraku set down his empty cup and said, “You won’t have to worry about Yama-jii. He’ll give you a stern talking to, but you won’t lose your commission. This captain’s autonomy thing is too important to him for him to suddenly expect Divisions to follow some kind of universal military code of justice. Besides, you’re hardly the only set of lovers in the ranks. It’d be a bad precedent.”

Ukitake wrung his hands. “Wouldn’t it be better for Byakuya to have face some kind of punishment—at least as a show?”

“What would you have the boy, do, love?” Kyōraku asked kindly. “Any kind of real justice would demand they either stop seeing each other, for Renji to be transferred, or both. And, since you’ve filled your lieutenancy, there isn’t a vacant one to be had in all the Gotei. Would you punish a captain-level soldier by making him serve as someone’s Third? Hell, the only empty seat I see anywhere is as Fourth for the Eleventh. You’d send poor Mr. Renji directly backwards? He’s worked so hard to move his career forward. That’d be a slap in the face, and, technically, he’s not the one to blame in fraternization. The one with the power-over is.”

They both looked at Byakuya. “Yet, I see Taicho’s point,” Byakuya said. “Perhaps there is something that could be suggested to the Head Captain. A fine perhaps?”

Kyōraku chuckled. “Do you really want to be that guy? The one who pays his way out of trouble?”

Byakuya was about to say that he failed to see what was so bad with that when Ukitake interjected, “Shunsui is right. It should be something a little meatier, don’t you think? Everyone knows you can pay any fine levied.”

“I suppose,” Byakuya said, disappointed. “Would you have me serve time?”

Kyōraku raised his eyebrows, but shook his head with a chuckle. “That’s a bit radical. Are you saying you’d agree to that?”

Byakuya sipped his tea for a moment as he considered. “I would, if it would solve the whole problem. If, afterwards, we could return to the way things were, with Renji as my lover and my lieutenant. If somehow there was an understanding that what I was doing was symbolic, as a punishment for having made a public mistake, and not a private one. I will not deny Renji. Nor am I prepared to accept his leaving my service unless it is by his choice. I was, and am, prepared to marry the man. I will not pretend otherwise.”

Ukitake sighed happily. Kyōraku slapped Byakuya’s shoulder and proclaimed, “We’ll make a romantic out of you yet, my boy! I’ll talk to the Old Man. We’ll get this sorted for you.”

_Good_ , Byakuya thought. _Now if only I can work things out with Renji as easily._

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Josey, of course, for her typo-spotting.


End file.
